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Senate passes bill forcing TikTok’s parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature. Biden expected to sign on Wed. (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] [S] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

My guess is they’re more concerned about propaganda. They’re concerned about it being Fox News, but for the CCP.

Starts off innocent enough, then slowly starts pushing disinformation that’s in service of a political entity.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You mean exactly like Facebook, right, because there are a lot of parallels but I never heard American politicians want to ban Facebook.

    Let's not fool ourselves!

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  • [–] [S] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Difference being, Facebook is just greedy, and will promote toxic disinformation because it gets high engagement numbers. If factual civics videos got high engagement, Facebook would gladly promote that. They want to promote whatever is going to sell more ads.

    With the CCP, the motivation is the message, not the money. With Facebook, the motivation is the money and whatever message makes the most of it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Based take. Seemed we learned nothing from Trump and What-aboutism. Just because Facebook does it and doesn't get in trouble doesn't mean Facebook is in the right. It means you should get mad and demand change from them too.

    Also I might have missed this, but didn't everyone get mad at tiktok last or a couple of years ago for circumventing Android and Apple app policies and collecting data they shouldn't? I though Facebook and Twitter obeyed those policies, they just had other means to collect that data.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    TikTok has been known to exploit 0-days to evade the Android permissions system and escape OS sandboxing, especially on rooted and/or unlocked phones. This is one of the primary reasons it was banned from government-issued devices in the USA.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    So I suppose put it like this: what if the way for Facebook to make the most money is all their current operations + pushing the rightwing agenda? (or leftwing depending on what team you're on).

    How is that any less meddling than tik tok? Sure Facebook is based in america, but has clearly shown it cares much more about its own interests than any country.

    It just feels like trusting a tank of gas cause you just saw someone get lit on fire by a tank of diesel

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    On one hand I can see your gas tank analogy being correct but I may be saying this out of habit of how we have been disarming disinformation that originates from random sources the whole time we have had social media but disarming disinformation that is backed and distributed by a authoritarian regimes that have a military force and possibly assassins and other means to physically shut people up it's a bit harder especially when you're going against them on a platform that they control and own

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Propaganda is effective. It’s at times silly, blatant, jingoistic, and offensive, but it has historically worked to influence public opinions.

    I think you’re right, but saying the quiet part out loud. People don’t like to think they’re susceptible to scams and propaganda because they’re not that dumb or gullible. People still click on phishing emails…

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Sure, you gotta limit the propaganda to American companies...

    I'm no fan of TikTok and I think it's actively harmful for a whole host of reasons, but freedom of speech is Constitutionally protected, and I can see an argument that "algorithms" should be included in that protection. That's probably why this doesn't target the "algorithms" TikTok uses, but instead targets the nation of origin.

    The propaganda issue is not resolved by this legislation, it merely attacks one potential source and gives the President tools to address other similar sources w/o passing new legislation. It's probably fine (and way better than previous, related proposals), but it doesn't do much to solve propaganda.

    I'd much rather see more focus on transparency, privacy, and consent, instead of just banning stuff because it seems dangerous.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    Yes, this is almost certainly it. They used the app to send a notification to users to contact their representatives about this bill. They are obviously willing to use it for political means, and their users are willing to listen. What else might they use that power to do?

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